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Firefighters Battle Fire in NYC Building

More than three dozen units and 150 firefighters are battling a massive fire inside a building near the Bronx Zoo, according to the FDNY. (Published Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018)

At least 23 people were hurt, nine of them children, as a seven-alarm fire swept through a multistory building near the Bronx Zoo early Tuesday, drawing more than three dozen fire units and 200 firefighters to help battle the flames.

The 5:30 a.m. fire broke out in a tin-roof furniture store, where the gates were down, on Commonwealth Avenue in Van Nest and rapidly spread up to apartments in the mixed-use building. FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said firefighters arrived in less than 4 minutes and helped rescue tenants.

Chopper 4 was over the scene and showed thick smoke pouring out of windows of the four-story building while firefighters worked to get the blaze under control. About two dozen fire trucks were at the scene as a half-dozen ladder trucks worked on the flames. An aerial view showed smoke billowing for blocks, and after more than three hours, crews were still working to put out the fire.

One resident said he fled the building with no shirts and no shoes -- only his three young children. They got out safely. But fire officials say nearly two dozen people, including that man and his family, have been displaced by the blaze.

A cause of Tuesday's blaze is under investigation. It's the fourth three-alarm or larger fire in the borough in less than a week.

On Thursday, 12 people, including children, died in a fast-moving fire in the Bronx, also near the zoo. Officials said that fire was sparked by a toddler playing with a stove. On Wednesday morning, a fire ripped through a multistory home on Garden Street near the Bronx Zoo that forced residents to quickly flee, some still in bathrobes. That same morning, a second fire burned, also at a multistory apartment building on Knox Place in the Norwood section of the Bronx. No one was hurt in that blaze.